About Jackie

Jackie Payne

Staff

Jackie Payne served as the Director of Move to End Violence from its inception until February 2018. A lawyer and policy advocate with 20 years of experience working to affect social change, Jackie brings an intersectional and cross-movement lens to her gender justice work.

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Jackie Payne began her career in post-apartheid South Africa, working on issues related to gender equity, women’s health, and economic empowerment. In 1997, Jackie became staff attorney at the Legal Assistance Foundation of Chicago, working to address domestic and sexual violence, public benefits, and consumer protection.

Driven by a desire for systemic change, Jackie joined the NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund in Washington, D.C., where she led a national coalition of community-based organizations dedicated to addressing the gendered-roots of poverty in America. Jackie also chaired the national coalition to end domestic and sexual violence and helped lead the successful campaign to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act. During this period, Jackie found joy as an Adjunct Professor teaching Gender, Equality, and the Law to Georgetown University students in the evenings.

In 2003, Jackie was recruited by Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) to run its 50-state advocacy program. In this role, Jackie partnered with the 100-plus affiliates across the country to set the policy agenda and build capacity for effective advocacy. As part of this effort, she partnered with women of color at the forefront of the reproductive justice movement to co-convene Reproductive Justice for ALL. In 2006, Jackie was promoted to Director of Government Relations, leading this billion dollar organization’s federal, state, and international policy work.

Jackie left PPFA in 2009 to design and run an 80-million dollar movement building initiative with the NoVo Foundation. From 2009 thru 2017 Jackie partnered with an extraordinary team boasting deep expertise in leadership and organizational development, movement building, and racial and gender justice to support movement leaders in their efforts to end violence against girls and women in the United States. To ensure solutions that work for every last girl and woman in the U.S., Move to End Violence’s design team, faculty team, and cohorts were all multicultural, with a majority people of color. While nurturing this brain-child, Jackie also began the journey of raising two spectacular little humans with her husband.

In the wake of the 2016 election, Jackie felt called to turn her attention to the vexing problem of the majority of white women in the U.S. who are not voting to advance equity. In 2018, Jackie launched a new program designed to understand and connect with segments of this population to engage their power for the good of all.

Jackie received her bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from the University of Illinois and her Juris Doctorate from the University of Michigan Law School. She is a trustee of the Patsy Takemoto Mink Foundation and Chair of the Board for PAI.